The present invention relates to a cartridge that is designed to be mounted in the tubing of an operating well, for example an oil well, in order to control the opening and closing of a safety valve located at a certain depth in the tubing and through which a fluid such as oil being drilled can flow.
A first object of the present invention is to provide for the automatic and rapid closing of a safety valve. It is a further object of the invention to provide for the automatic and rapid closing of a safety valve such as a gate valve, also referred to as a flapper valve, or, for that matter, any other type of valve used in oil wells, such as spherical plug valves.
It is a second object of the present invention to enable the voluntary closing of a valve located at a relatively significant depth in well tubing from either ground level or from an ocean platform, either with or without an access code as desired.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide for either voluntary rapid closing, or automatic closing, of a safety valve in a drilling well, in particular during oil drilling operations. Such automatic or voluntary closing of the safety valve may be good for safety reasons as well as for preventing pollution of the environment, for example by preventing oil from being spilled into the marine environment from an off-shore oil drilling platform.